"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
The ONLY good thing about the Waco massacre (and it’s a thin reed indeed *sigh*) was the blue-on-blue ATF deaths. When the bad guys kill each other, it’s always good. Too bad there were so few. It in no way mitigates the horrendous evil perpetrated by the feds, but at least it’s a small (very small) thing. *sigh*
. . .all the ignorant, emotional, lie-filled arguments by anti-gun, anarcho-tyrannist statists and wild, slavering, stupid calls for gun confiscation kinda irk me. In light of that, here: a .30-caliber, DIY, fully-automatic air rifle.
Make it in your garage. Completely unregulated, as far as I know, in any of the federal firearms laws, because: air rifle. It is not a firearm.
And that’s just if someone doesn’t decide to get their hands on various pieces of low-quality steel and emulate third world home “gunsmiths” the world around and manufacture themselves an AK-47, since it was designed for ease of low-tech reproduction, of download any one of the widespread sets of plans for making one’s own AR-15, go out along the highway collecting aluminum cans, forge and machine a receiver, etc.
Yeh, that very thing has been done by some guy in his own garage and back yard.
Idiots just irk me, and these willfully stupid, electively-ignorant, anti-gun, anarcho-tyrannist statists wildly screaming for gun confiscation, are just that: self-made idiots.
Oh, the “I’m not a gun nut” comment? Currently, entire “arsenal” consists of an 89-year-old revolver. I’d be happy with a couple more firearms, but right now, I just do not need them, and the lil revolver is enough for my current use. This is only possible, because I live in a county that is about as safe as Switzerland, probably because most folks are armed. *heh*
But.. . I will admit I am a “knife nut.” “Never bring a gun to a knife fight” might be something I would think, and even say. . . *heh* OK, just kidding. It’s always good to have both at hand in a “bad actor” scenario, but at or within arm’s length, I’m MUCH more likely to do serious damage with a knife, even with my teensy lil Spyderco Squeak Sprint1, a really, really small knife.
1Thanks again to my Estimable Son-in-Law. I use this knife–and those given to me by Son & Heir–daily, many many times daily.
I am so very tired of unthinking people parroting lies from tyrannical statists concerning the “rights” of the federal government.The federal government has no rights. It has specific duties and responsibilities denoted in the Constitution, all aimed at protecting the rights of citizens from infringement. The People also allow the Constitution to empower the federal government with powers derived from themselves to effect the protection of the rights of the People from infringement.
The Constitution also specifically limits the federal government in specific ways (ways most often dishonored in the breach1 nowadays) to forbid it power to infringe on individuals’ rights. One of those limits, noted in the Second amendment, is getting a lot of lying press from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, recently. All of the lies being told by the Hivemind are in service to the goals of tyrannical statists who are in favor of removing the People’s final check on a tyrannical government, as well as robbing individuals of an effective means to project their right of self-defense against any bad actors (including government bad actors, at all levels).
Just keep in mind that the Hivemind isnow, has been, and will continue to lie about so-called “gun control.” The truth about “gun control” is quite different in many ways than the Hivemind presents, but one critical way is that we, the People, are meant to be a check on tyranny instituted by government. The Founders viewed ALL of the People, save government officials, as part of the militia meant to protect against government infringement of individual rights. That alone would end “gun control” talk, if truth were told both about the primary purpose the Framers added the Second Amendment and the “long train of abuses” of individual rights that have been and continue to be perpetrated by the federal government against citizens.
Apologies to The Bard for mangling his words. The original “more honor’d in the breach” referred to breaking with bad custom. Instead, I refer to the dishonorable behavior of the federal government in ignoring its constitutionally-specified duties and exceeding its constitutionally limited powers.
Horatio:
What does this mean, my lord?
Hamlet:
The King doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring up-spring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Is it a custom?
Hamlet:
Ay, marry, is’t,
But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honor’d in the breach than the observance,
Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 7–16
OK, a bump fire stock might be useful in a “Red Dawn” scenario (assuming a LARGE ammo supply), for suppressive fire on an objective, but apart from that, it’s just a (fun, from the looks of it) ammo-waster.
Saw a comment (sans clear reference to a transcript to an NPR segment that apparently aired in the past couple of days delineating the differences between bump fire-enabled and full auto firearms. No details in the comment; just a wee bit of amazement that such a thing would air on NPR. . .
Interesting comment elsewhere (Quora) that I immediately juxtaposed with visual evidence:
“Bump fire allows you to keep your finger in place while the gun moves. However, it is still only firing a single shot per pull of the trigger. The trigger is just being pulled faster than a person could manually do without bump-fire.”
The visual evidence I juxtaposed with it? A video of Jerry Miculek firing an AR-15 vs “some guy” (I dunno/can’t recall who, although I’ll post the video and we’ll all know then *heh*) firing a bump fire equipped AR-15. The bumpfire weapon did “outrun” Miculek by a split second, but Miculek’s shots were all on target and better-grouped. No one who’s not in a very elite group of shooters can do that, but no one–even the fastest finger in the world, if such can be definitively determined ;-)–can come even that close to even the slowest genuine full-auto.
And every example of bumpfired weapons I have seen shows that accuracy suffers a great deal. Just sayin’. If it comes to a “Red Dawn” scenario, use your handgun to get to your shotgun to get to your rifle, and use your rifle to “capture” more advanced weapons and ammunition. *heh*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddPTyoV-Irc
When people talk of “open carry,” “concealed carry” and “Constitutional carry,” they almost universally refer to the bearing of FIREarms for self-defense, and yes, firearms can be an important aspect of affirmative self-defense. But this post is limited to a very short take on another self-defense tool that is often neglected: knives.
Within 10 feet (or more; many LEO trainers cite a “21-foot rule” for knives as being the range at which a knife user could close to cause significant damage to someone who has still yet to bring his firearm to bear), a knife can potentially be more effective than a firearm.
Knives are really scary to many people, for one thing. And even folks who have no fear of knives and are skilled in their many, many uses know how devastating a knife wound can be. Seriously.
So, carrying at least one knife may actually be a fairly decent self-defense preparation, provided one learns how to use it for that purpose.1
But knives are so much more useful than that. Anyone who does not regularly carry at least one knife on their person is walking around unprepared for life in general, IMO.
But a knife? One simply Will Not Do. *heh*
Seriously, different knives have different “best uses,” and I find that I use three or four of the knives I regularly carry at least once daily. And then there are my “car and EDC bag knives. . . ”
I do appreciate that State laws in my locale are moderately unobtrusive. For example, open carry of knives (belt knives) is not forbidden, and no length limit on open carry knives exists in statute. Unfortunately, State laws here are not preemptive in the case of knives and firearms, allowing local ordinances to (illegitimately) modify one’s natural rights, AND are actually MORE restrictive concerning “concealed knives” than re: concealed forearms (*shrugs* Makes no sense to me), but fortunately, America’s Third World County™ is very “knife (and firearm) friendly.” The only problems that seem to arise are with in-movers, some of whom are surprised (and even fewer disturbed) by the open carry of knives and firearms.
Of course, some of the more recent in-movers are local “new hire” LEOs, and their learning curve is a bit steep. *sigh* Ah, well, live and learn or don’t live long, as Lazarus Long was wont to say. *heh*
1Here’s a decent start for those who would appreciate an “old school book larnin'” take on self-defense with knives. Instructional videos of widely varying quality abound on the Internet, and classes are available in various locales around the country, too.
Building an AR-15 Under 5 Pounds
Nice article, and reads like a nice build. I do lack a bit of confidence in their math, though, given that the build they were comparing to was 5lb5oz and ~$3,500 while the 4lb13oz build was “slightly more than $1,800, nearly half the price of the carbine in the article that spawned this exercise.”
“[N]early half the price”? No, slightly MORE than half the price. “Nearly” implies “almost” or “not quite,” and $1,800 is more than half of $3,500.
Numbers. Language. Not strong suits for this writer.
Sure, I have the right to carry openly or concealed (and I have), but there are several reasons why I do not normally, habitually, carry a handgun on my person.
I’m gettin’ old, folks. Arthritis and difficulty quickly transitioning between near and far make sighting/aiming and firing a handgun an exercise in “maybe accuracy,” and that’s just not good enough to assure NOT hitting what I do not want to.
I also live in one of the safest places in the world, safer from physical attacks on my person than almost anywhere else in America that has people in it. *heh* That means that others around me are also pretty darned unlikely to experience physical aggression initiated against them (by anyone other than law enFARCEment ossifers, that is).
Sidebar: perhaps one of the reasons it’s so safe here in America’s Third World County™ is that firearms of all kinds outnumber inhabitants by quite a healthy margin, and many folks do carry a handgun both openly and concealed. Gives me warm fuzzies. 🙂
The only reason I might carry a handgun, given my circumstances, would be if I were to go out walking in “snake country” or “feral pig country,” and in that case, I’d probably need to carry a S&W Governor loaded in alternate chambers with .410 gauge shotshells and .45 long colt (each for a different contingency). The .410 (loaded with birdshot, for snake use) would pretty much obviate concerns about really fine aiming, though I’d just have to hope for decent enough luck if a feral pig got his mad on.
Still, even in such cases, I’d probably prefer to keep my head on a swivel and note issues well enough in advance to back away from a venomous snake or take to a tree in case of a feral pig.
I own a little revolver that is. . . different in several ways from the norm.
It’s a lil .32 ACP revolver that uses a round designed for .32 semi-automatics.
It is from a defunct maker of second-tier-quality knock-offs of other maker’s guns.
It’s a top-break revolver (semi-unusual nowadays).
It is one of very few the manufacturer made in this caliber with a six-round cylinder. By far, most of the .32 caliber revolvers made by this maker were 5-round.
Before it came to be in my possession, it had been fired only once, in 1929, by a man who committed suicide after the stock market crash. In the 84 years that intervened between that event and me coming into possession of the gun, no one else put a single round through it, and aside from two small spots of surface corrosion, the gun was in pristine condition, the bluing–apart from those two small spots–still perfect.
It’s a pretty good lil plinker, and ammo for the thing abounds, but I mostly just leave it cleaned, oiled, and in its case. I don’t really have a use for it aside from plinking, though I also have a nice lil IWB holster (that I picked up for ~$29 less than retail–$1–at my local “fell off the back of a truck” store) so I could, if I wanted, carry it concealed. . . if I wanted to, which–.32 ACP?–I do not.
Reading up on the new Missouri “Constitutional Carry” bill requires putting on my “legal eagle glasses” AND putting up with illiterate “booby-age” from Mass MEdia Podpeople (No, it’s NOT “county sheriff’s offices” dummy; it’s “county sheriffs’ offices”). The first, because the bill was written in such a way that it primarily just deletes portions of previous law, making understanding what lawmakers were doing more a matter of subtraction than anything else. The second because, well, Mass MEdia Podpeople: subliterates spreading their own misinformation/disinformation via sloppy, subliterate grammar and word usage.
It doesn’t help to have a few seriously illiterate “law enFARCEment ossifers” chiming in with lies, disinformation, and misinformation. (State HiPos who’ve been quoted have seemed to get things more right than not, though. Many local yokels–mostly from big cities–seem to be either clueless or simply liars.)
At any rate, I won’t rely on the law being in effect until January, not that it will affect my behavior one way or another. 😉
Seen various places:
A well tailored suit, being necessary to the appearance of a sharply dressed gentleman, the right of the people to keep and wear clothes, shall not be infringed.
So, according to the “understandings” applied to the Second Amendment by (wilfully) illiterate leftards, only “sharply dressed gentlemen” have a right to “keep and wear clothes”? That would certainly chap a few misandrists’ gizzards. . . (not to mention leading to some interesting sunburns and other such things. . . )